Search This Blog

2012 Brenda Novak Auction

Hard to believe, but the 2012 Brenda Novak Auction for the Cure of Diabetes is right around the corner, little more than 2 months away. Since my Teen has this disease, I've been contributing a quilted project for several years now. This year, I'm offering something a little different that I hope will appeal to authors, but perhaps readers might like this, too.

I am offering to make a "book cover wall hanging"--that is I will design and make a wall hanging that includes the images of up to 4 book covers. High-resolution files, submitted by the winning bidder, will be printed onto fabric and sewn into a quilt that will probably measure around 24" x 18", depending on how many book covers are used. To illustrate what I'm thinking of, I made up a prototype for Brenda as a thank you for all she's done to make the auction happen.

I chose to work with Brenda's latest series and started with these three book covers:

I need to pause a moment and admire the incredible design work of the art department at MIRA. The colors of the covers are adjacent to each other on the color wheel. The sunrise or sunset at the top of each cover uses color that is carried over into the color of the printing of Brenda's name. I was inspired to do a sketch that would incorporate the main color of each cover and the color of Brenda's name. I decided to frame each cover with a border matching Brenda's name. Then I would make strips to run the length of the quilt, top and bottom, using the main color of each cover. Here's what I drew:

I dug through my fabric stash and found fabrics to match the colors in the covers. And I found a fabulous fabric that worked as a border and frames the quilt so nicely. Here's the finished quilt:

Here are some close-ups of the quilting:

To give you an idea of the scale of the quilt and also how well the image transfers to fabric, here's a copy of Inside next to its image on the quilt:

So, I'm looking forward to seeing if anyone will bid on this and give me a chance to design something around another set of book covers. When May gets here, I hope you'll help me spread the word!

Comments

OMG - I want to win this! You could do covers of four Bat Cave keepers :) I plan on bidding, but I have no doubt it will eventually get too rich for my blood. Damn, why am I librarian and not a doctor? Oh yeah, the whole sick people, blood and sucking at science thing.....

I hate to be a wet blanket, but please be careful about the copyright issues here. I don't think most readers can legally copy book covers, and even authors need permission in some contexts. I would hate to see anyone get in trouble over this.

You're not being a wet blanket at all! Actually, this is something I've considered and I asked Brenda about way back when I first proposed this. If an author wins this auction it will be easier to get the permissions we'd need, for sure. When I made the sample for Brenda I got the images directly from her editor at Harlequin and they were aware why I wanted them.

As I commented on twitter when Brenda shared this... it's absolutely gorgeous. Very unique and special to the author or reader who wins! Can you remind me when we're closer to the opening of the auction so I can promote this on my blog? I think I missed promoting you and the auction last year!!! :(

This is the first of a trilogy of "IN" books. "In Seconds" and "In Close" and numbers two and three. Brenda did not disappoint! She gave us a nail biter that I had a difficult time putting down. I won't go into the plot or characters as that's already been done by other reviewers. I can only add my opinion that this book is a winner and I can't wait to begin the second in the series. I definitely recommend this book and any others written by Brenda, for that matter. I marvel that she is self taught in the art of writing as she does it so well.

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Five years ago I did a paint chip challenge with my sister and the QBFFs. It was so much fun I decided to do it again. As president of my quilt guild this past year I got to issue a quilting challenge to members so I went to Home Depot, picked up a bunch of paint chips and passed them out. (If you're interested, I wrote about it back in October so you can see the rules I passed out with the paint chips.) This is the paint chip that I got:
And here is what I made:
This quilt is from a pattern called Geometric Gradation that I purchased from Geta Grama, a quilter from Romania. She does the most amazing work. I have two of her other patterns I hope to get to one day.

My quilt is smaller than the original pattern because I only collected 8 blue fabrics in the right shades of blue (that pattern calls for 11 rows). This is a great quilt for snuggling on the couch, although right now it looks pretty awesome hanging on the wall.
I quilted it with white 40-wt. Aurifil thread in an all-ove…

I bought this used over 2 years ago because I saw several references to it by readers who considered it one of their favorite Anne Stuart books. It has been sitting in the TBR pile all this time and I was glad for the excuse to finally get it out and read it. I was not disappointed.

Lord of Danger is a medieval-set historical, the story of Alys of Summersedge and Simon of Navarre. Alys is half-sister to Richard de Lancie. Simon is a magician who works for Richard. Because of his dark looks, crippled hand, and mastery of the dark arts, everyone is afraid of Simon except for Richard. Alys and her younger sister Claire were raised in a convent and have been brought home to Summersedge so Richard can marry one of them to Simon. This will tie Simon to Richard so that Richard can continue to make use of Simon's talents. Simon, who manages to quietly manipulate Richard, has his own reasons for agreeing to the match. He views his association with Richard as temporary and will move on again…

I've been working my way through Nora Roberts' single-title back list. There are some real classics there that I have thoroughly enjoyed (especially Public Secrets). So for this month's theme of "Kickin' it Old School," The Villa seemed a good choice.

The Villa tells the story of the Giambelli family and their wine-making empire. Presiding over the family is Tereza, grandmother of the heroine, Sophia. Tereza's second husband is Eli MacMillan, a neighboring wine-maker. Together, the two of them decide to merge their empires, throwing Eli's grandson Tyler into closer contact with Sophia. Tyler is the farmer, nurturing the vines. Sophia is the business-woman and public face of the company. The merger brings all sorts of drama into their lives as an outsider is brought in to become the COO and Sophia's cousin Don resents being pushed aside. Naturally, because it's La Nora after all, this leads to murder and acts of sabotage. Sophia and Tyler have …